


Can I Get Lost in You?

by xevinx



Series: Never Held You Close Enough [1]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: A LOT of Angst, Angst, Bad Decisions, Ex Sex, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Break Up, Real feelsy smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-20
Updated: 2018-03-20
Packaged: 2019-03-31 20:35:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13982856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xevinx/pseuds/xevinx
Summary: "You know I wouldn't call unless I was in pain.""I know."





	Can I Get Lost in You?

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from 'Good Lust' by Keaton Henson and like, that song fits this fic PERFECTLY.
> 
> This is my first fic in a while, so... I hope it doesn't totally suck.

"You know I wouldn't call unless I was in pain."

"I know."

A silence passed over them, more resigned than awkward.

"I should be better at dealing with... everything," Frederick sighed. "It has been long enough."

He should have been better at bearing the weight of it all. He shouldn't have had to resort to... _this._ But he was suffocating, he was drowning in his self-pity and there was only one person who had ever been a liferaft for him.

"It would have been _me_ calling _you_ , sooner or later," said Will in a small, measured voice, "if not you now."

"In that case, what a miserable, unfortunate pair we are."

The more things changed, the more they stayed the same. They'd been broken up for over two years, officially — longer than they had been together — but this still happened now and then. Every few months in fact, like clockwork. When the demons caught up with them and they couldn't seem to shake them off, they would find fleeting solace in the physical, in each other.

"Are you in the city?" Chilton asked, and there was no hiding the hopeful vein in his voice.

Will's reply was lightning fast. "Yes." 

Then Frederick waited, heart in his mouth, for what he hoped was the inevitable confirmation.

"I can be there in a half hour."

And that was that. Will didn't dare ask for the details of what was wrong; that wasn't how this worked. It was always about forgetting, a beautiful disaster of a distraction that was within arm’s reach once more.

The time that Frederick spent waiting stretched on like a lifetime. He wiped the tears from his face and fixed up his makeup, disguising the scar as best he could — but he was a pro by now and that took less than five minutes. The remaining twenty-five were spent trying to settle his nerves, which proved infinitely more difficult.

Finally there came that long-awaited knock on the door, the sound alone setting Frederick's heart thumping so hard in his chest he could almost hear it. He managed to wait a few long seconds before opening the door, aware that he reeked enough of desperation already.

They came face to face.

As Will drank in the sight of his former lover, the first thought that popped into his mind was that Frederick looked... _different_. Older than his years, gaunter too. Makeup had done little to hide the bags under his eyes or the lines etched into his forehead, and any number of other tells that painted a picture of inner anguish. In that moment, Will couldn't decide whether it was better or worse that Chilton called _him_ instead of anyone else at those times. Either way, there he was.

Being directed that same old blindingly intense gaze felt invasive to Frederick, as though the other man were boring into his soul and _Jesus Christ,_ he needed Will to stop looking at him and just _touch him_ already. He was nothing short of addicted to Will's ability to blank his mind out.

He stepped back to let Will into the house, closing the door behind him and then turning on his heels. As they began to close the little distance between them, Will caught sight of a half-full bottle of bourbon on the coffee table and the empty tumbler beside it.

"Have you been drinking?"

He took a step backwards. Taking advantage of someone intoxicated wasn't something he would do even accidentally.

"I took it out because I considered drinking, but... alcohol doesn’t seem to work anymore. It doesn't numb it, or even dull it in the slightest."

Will only hummed in response. Those days alcohol didn't work for him either. It was always there, that unnamed beast, the unforgiving, blunt ache at the back of his mind. The unshakable past.

There was only one thing left to do.

Not one more word was exchanged before Frederick stepped forward and pulled Will into an urgent kiss, hands gripping onto both sides of his face and their chests pressing together. Will deepened the kiss, hands settling naturally on Frederick's waist, and he could practically feel the tension rolling off of the other man's body as he did so.

To a stranger, this whole scene might have looked exactly like the beautiful climax of a love story where the fated couple finally find their happily ever after in each other. And yet that couldn't be further from the truth. This reunion was desperate, _yes_ — but ill thought out, and above all else, as they both knew well...  _entirely transient_.

That deep-seated affection was still there, it was enduring and perhaps immortal, but the realities and practicalities of life had never really given them a chance at a real relationship. Completely inexperienced, they'd had no idea what they were doing. There had been too much they didn’t agree on, they had lived such opposite lives and the word 'compromise' hadn't been in any of their vocabularies, stubborn and set in their ways as they each were.

This unspoken arrangement that they had developed since parting ways might have looked like a good thing on the surface — proof that they were still able to turn to each other in their times of need. But it wasn't.

It was like an unbreakable thread tugging at them, pulling them right back to their complex, shared past. Each and every time a potent reminder of exactly what they had lost. What they had given up on. Giving up had been the easy way out and yet at the same time there was absolutely nothing easy about it. Not when they met again like this, choosing to drive another stake through their hearts. But it was _the devil you know,_ it was sweet pain — why else would they find themselves there time and time again?

Frederick pushed his hips forward to grind against Will, kissing along his jawline and breathing in his heady scent of oak and cheap cologne. Surrendering to the moment.

_I'm yours. Always have been._

But doubt permeated Will's every move as he found himself immediately overcome by a strange sinking feeling right in the pit of his stomach. It hit him with such force and depth that he thought he might lose consciousness there and then. His hands trembled as they slid up Frederick's sides and he even held his breath unconsciously, jaw clenched in discomfort.

It took him a good few seconds, but Frederick noticed.

"Will?" _Oh, fuck_. "We can stop if you want."

Although Frederick might have thought he was saying that sincerely, Will still picked up the dejection in his voice, in the downwards curl of his lips.

"No, I didn’t come here to... stop." _To fail at being what Frederick needed once more._ "Let's just..."

He made straight for the buttons on Frederick's shirt this time, and within moments they were stumbling into the bedroom over the trail of discarded items of clothing that they left behind. _God_ , he wanted this too, he really did.

It was like an old well-choreographed dance, but somehow as exhilarating as the first time nonetheless. Muscle memory took over from their conscious minds and being on autopilot was a beautiful release. Like the comfort of a warm, fuzzy blanket. It wasn't gentle as such, not while Frederick was pushing up himself to meet and deepen Will’s thrusts, but he craved the catharsis that a slight roughness provided.

Hands roaming, Will found himself in the curves and dips of Frederick’s body, in those utterly familiar contours, and in those moments he could almost manage to convince himself that he was never really lost. That was what his North Star did to him.

For Frederick too, this felt like coming home. Will always knew exactly how he liked to be touched, exactly how to take him apart. Home. That painful, eternal stab of longing finally dealt with — or at least shrouded temporarily by the intense immediacy of the physical experience. Because home certainly wasn’t a place, not when Frederick had been through four houses in as many years. 

Home was Will's lips on his neck, hot breath and kisses peppered all around.

Home was their bodies pushed up against each other and their fingers locked together.

Home was a truly exceptional luxury these days.

So as much as he'd had every intention of driving _all_ his thoughts away, Frederick made a point of savouring every last bit of this, committing every caress, every last touch to memory — perhaps then he wouldn’t have been so deafeningly alone when he found his bed terminally empty once again.

Still, there were parts of this that were too inciting, far too meaningful to truly confront. Frederick had to try with all his might to ignore the way his heart fluttered when Will moved his arm from covering his face so that he could really see him, so that he could soak up the muddy mix of emotions pouring from his eyes.

 _'I miss you like hell'_ was written in the way Frederick grabbed onto Will so tightly it was as though they might literally merge into one being. _'I know'_ was in the way Will carded his fingers tenderly through Frederick's hair,  _'I miss you too'_ in the soft, fond expression that seemed to be a permanent fixture on Will's face despite his exertion. They had always been better at showing than telling. 

Case in point — their only real verbal communication was restricted to single syllables now: " _here"_ , _"yes"_ , _"harder"_ and " _there"_  — and of course a litany of curse words. Well, that was the _English_.

The Spanish wasn't a reflex for Chilton, it wasn't something that his muddled mind went straight back to naturally in the overwhelming throes of passion. In fact, his tendency to slip into Spanish had only emerged the second or third time they had slept together  _after_ they had ended their relationship. That was because it was a deliberate way for Frederick to say the things that he couldn't say in English, that he'd never had the opportunity or the courage to.

It was easy to blurt out  _"no podría quererte más"_ or  _"nunca quiero que esto termine"_ when he was certain that Will wouldn't understand him at all. But Will wasn't stupid either; he knew exactly what Frederick was doing, _of course_ he knew, but he chose ignorance, the safest course of action.

As the heat coiled around the bottom of his spine, Frederick was suddenly struck by rumination and came to the conclusion that he didn't deserve one bit of this, that he wasn't at all worthy of the unconditional affection he was being directed, and that Will didn't deserve it either. He didn't deserve to have to pick up the pieces and put Frederick back together again every time he broke himself — but he was always there when he needed him.

Silence left a lot of space for equally unwelcome thoughts to encroach into Will’s mind too. He remembered how Frederick used to make little remarks that were somehow both snarky and sappy during sex, the memories hitting him square on with a bold pang of nostalgia for their affectionate banter. Despite the situation they currently found themselves in, they would never have _that_ again.

So just as his ex was actively doing, Will pushed his thoughts away and tried to remain present, to remain in the moment with Frederick, focusing on his senses. The wondrous sight beneath him, the rhythmic groans echoing off the walls, eager hands with nails dipping into the skin of his back.

It didn't last much longer. Frederick bit down on his lip as the unfiltered pleasure wracked his jerking body, seeing white behind his screwed eyes and breathing out a gargantuan sigh of relief. Will was almost silent himself, holding back the low groan that morphed into a choked sob as it rose in his throat. As his body buckled down onto Frederick's, their chests heaved in unintentional synchrony. Words had no place there; they would have shattered the fragile fantasy that they had been suspended in.

For Will, that fantasy wasn't fated to last much longer anyway. He rolled over onto his back on the left side of the bed and — _oh,_ it was all wrong. The left wasn’t _his side_ of the bed but — as he realised with a sharp sting to his chest — neither was where Frederick lay beside him. He didn't belong anywhere in that bed.

The adrenaline and the high waned and the world came back into focus. As Will reached over to dispose of the condom they'd used in the trash can beside the nightstand, he felt so _dirty_. In that moment, he wanted to disappear off the face of the Earth, his skin _crawled_ all over. Lying perfectly still, Will mulled over the decision that he wouldn't do this again, that they simply couldn't keep doing it. 

And yet deep down he knew that even though he stopped short of owning his own truth Frederick always quietly understood how much Will desperately needed these encounters too.

Who was he kidding? He really was just as hopeless. On that front they were perfectly suited, ironically. It might even have been poetic if the agony wasn’t so real, if it didn't hurt so goddamn much, if it didn't feel like a living nightmare.

"Was I really awful to you?" questioned Frederick, having finally caught his breath, and it brought Will's wandering mind into the room again. "Back then."

"No," Will whispered up to the ceiling, and despite everything, despite the arguments and the ultimatums, he meant it. "We were just awful together."

"Right."

The voice that came from beside Will was muffled now, and he turned his head to see Frederick face down in his pillow, probably trying to hide the tears that were most likely welling in his eyes. He wished he was strong enough to really help Frederick with the root of his problems, more than just temporarily fucking away those undesirable resurfacing emotions. He didn't want to only make him  _feel_ better, he wanted to help him  _get_ better. But it was a pipedream; he'd never even been strong enough to do that for himself, let alone anyone else.

Will wasn't sure how long he'd been caged in the wonderings of his mind when he noticed Frederick's breathing had fallen into a slower, regular rhythm. Frederick was asleep.

So he moved slow, but swift as he rose from the bed, despite his body being burdened with the weight of the words he could never bring himself to say. He salvaged his clothes and then leaned down over the bed again, drawn back to Frederick by a magnetic pull. Needing to touch him one last time to tide himself over.

Will tugged the duvet up from where it was dangling half on the floor to cover Frederick's body and dropped a kiss in his disheveled hair. They had never quite said goodbye despite the numerous chances to cut their ties and in that regard, this time would be just the same as the others — torturing in its ambiguity.

Silent as could be, Will tiptoed out of the bedroom and disappeared into the darkness of the night.

Maybe he'd find a bar and at least try to drink the pain away. Pain or consciousness, whichever went first. Maybe that was the only recourse because they were never meant to be. That was what he would tell himself, that was what he would chant over and over in the walls of his mind until he really believed it. They were never meant to be.

It was love. But that wouldn't be enough.

**Author's Note:**

> [‘no podría quererte más’ = I couldn't want you more;  
> ‘nunca quiero que esto termine’ = I don't want this to ever end  
> \-- I hope my Spanish isn't too far off!]
> 
> Thanks for reading <3 Comments and kudos are always greatly appreciated!


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